This is such a beloved book and yet, I couldn't finish it.

It's quite strange because this is my third book by the author. Even though I did overall like The Lathe of Heaven, I have never really cared for her writing style.

There's something about it that just doesn't click with me. However, I still want to give The Left Hand of Darkness a shot since I own it. Maybe this time it will be different and I'll finally understand the appeal of her work.

But deep down, I think it's time for me to accept that she won't be a favorite author of mine. I can appreciate her talent and the ideas she presents in her books, but her writing just doesn't speak to me on a personal level.

It's okay though, as there are so many other amazing authors out there waiting for me to discover.

Fulfillment, Shevek believed, is intertwined with time. The pursuit of pleasure is circular, repetitive, and outside the bounds of time. The actions of the spectator seeking variety, the thrill hunter, and the sexually promiscuous all lead to the same conclusion. It has an end and then must start anew. It is not a journey with a return but a closed cycle, a locked room, a cell.

Outside this locked room lies the landscape of time, where, with fortune and courage, the spirit can construct the fragile, makeshift, and improbable roads and cities of fidelity. It is a landscape that can be inhabited by humans.

It is only when an act takes place within the landscape of the past and the future that it becomes a human act. Loyalty, which affirms the continuity of past and future, binding time into a whole, is the foundation of human strength. Without it, there is no good that can be accomplished.

I am a self-centered and impractical individual when it comes to many aspects of life, and literature is no different. A book being worthy in its own right, with its prose, plot, and combination of fact and fiction, is not sufficient for me. I will judge, but more than that, I will pilfer and hoard any worthy piece and passage. I will even build my own words and fancies based on the standard structure, disguising them under the guise of a'review' and releasing them on the largest forum technology has provided. In short, appreciation is no longer enough if there is no space for me to create.

This is not a very stable concept, is it? Taking a seemingly complete work and shaping it into strange and subjective forms, being dissatisfied with simply sitting back and allowing the phrase 'This is what I thought of the book...' to represent the full experience of that particular reading. Distrusting the shortcuts of words, such as'speculative fiction' and 'Ursula K. Le Guin', all those key terminologies that initially attracted me to consider the work worthy of my attention.

Worthy of my attention? What is that? What is my 'attention' itself, one that has made a business of dissatisfaction with institutions and ideologies and has given up hope of finding refuge in any one-time ready-made form, anything that does not change and evolve with every passing second, season, and generation?

Exactly that. For I am a being bound by time and its limited infinity, its cyclical progress, and its complex web where facts are driven by both the abstract and the scientific method, regardless of what people may believe. A person who, by coincidence and consequence, is easily won over by any medium that views science as beautifully as art. It seems like a simple matter, but it is also a lie of simplification, deceptively ordinary if one doesn't mention examples of successful media like 'The Magic Mountain' by Thomas Mann and the works of Pynchon. There are others that I can't recall due to my own limited memory, a thought as fascinating and terrifying as the void itself. After all, how much are my own opinions worth when I can't even retain all the parameters of them within the limits of instantaneous retrieval forever? And this one, which has forced me to further expand and complicate my definition of what I 'like', as shown by the disparity in complex depth between it and the previous works.

This is truly an excellent thought experiment regarding the 'lie of simplification'. For this book does not attempt to achieve reality through a constant barrage of ideas or stretch the connective tissue between branches of knowledge to the point of nonsensical pride and fearful rejection. Instead, it has the simple elegance of a mathematical proof, bound up in the terms of biological fact and empathetic concern, solving the factor of an ever-progressing instant with an ever-widening calcification of history behind it, on a ship of constants built by the dead for the living.

The answer? You'd have a better chance of finding stabilized truth in the Uncertainty Principle, where change is not a means to an end but one and the same. A theorem that, despite its indisputable reality, has not yet led the entire scientific community into a mass existential crisis, nor has it led the public consciousness to the realization that there is inherent futility in seeking a life within a label. Of course, labels that are inherently tied to a consideration of the unceasing flow of time and all the resulting chaos of such a concept are likely to fare better. But the fact remains that with every new self, every forward momentum of knowledge and insight, from a child on one side of the world looking at a cave painting from an unknown past millennium to a child on the other side grasping the instantaneous crossfire of the Internet faster than its creators, the labels are nothing more than a guideline. Easily fitted, easily discarded, easily broken down and cannibalized by those who only need bits and pieces of it. A constant evolution that is frightening for the majority who desire only balance with the existing structure and will not or cannot afford to sacrifice their livelihood for the inevitability of progress.

It is a difficult situation for those who have equally invested their interests in the maintenance of their self and the future of humanity. A simultaneous transience that requires an ever-watchful eye on the facts of the world at large as well as the delicate clockwork of the only mind at one's disposal. An effort sustained by the thought that the effort will never be complete, with the kinder words of uniqueness and altruism inextricably linked to those of egotism and naivety, where one kind of knowledgeable insight will never truly be enough, no matter how much compartmentalization the simple act of socializing in theorized, standardized, and economized forms demands.

I read to discover and write with the full knowledge that the discovery will never be enough. I am grateful for what the world can offer me and criticize with the full knowledge of my ingratitude. I balance my consumption with my output and find as much glory in the cold curves of physics as in the complex vagaries of philosophy. I am here, and if you try to convince me of a label or attempt to label me, I will look, listen, and give you the benefit of the doubt within the bounds of social politeness and my personal social behavior. However, keep in mind that the constant give and take of truth and empathy will always be more fruitful than the demand for unchanging acquiescence to anything, just as the simplistic equations of calculable chemistry disguise a fierce and frothing equilibrium at every level of growth and decay. If you insist otherwise, I will drift away, for I am a selfish and impractical person when it comes to my maxim that conventions are never enough, and all my efforts to learn will always hold equal importance with my valuing of personal sensibilities of what it means to be human.

"My race is very old," Ketho said. "We have been civilized for a thousand millennia. We have histories of hundreds of those millennia. We have tried everything. Anarchism, among other things. But I have not tried it. They say there is nothing new under any sun. But if each life is not new, each single life, then why are we born?"

The first book I read by Ursula K. Le Guin was, in my opinion, a special book that can lead to much self-reflection when read calmly. I started by stating that I read it in its Turkish translation. When I finished, I didn't have the thought of reading it in its original language.

The story of how the book was written is a story in itself. "The Dispossessed" was written as a response to Dostoyevsky's "The Possessed" (Demons). If I had known this information before reading "The Dispossessed", I think I would have read Dostoyevsky's work first. That's why I will read Demons at the first opportunity.

In the book, Anarres and Urras are two worlds that are the embodiment of each other depending on how you look at them. And in fact, they are complementary to each other, like yin and yang, opposite but part of the whole, part of understanding life. I really enjoyed learning about the word games used when naming these two worlds. (I didn't specifically write the word game here as I didn't want to give spoilers.) The fact that it has not lost its general relevance and appeal since the year it was written is like an indication of how broad a perspective it was written from.

I really liked the main character Shevek. His outlook on life and his way of self-reflection were so realistic that if possible, I would like to know what he would think about the people in the world today. :)

Since I started my group readings with "The Dispossessed", I'm very happy with my choice. I've underlined 20 places. The lines that affected me the most among those written are: \\"...Everything is changing, you can't possess anything. Especially you can't possess this moment if you don't accept the past and the future with it... Not only the past, but also the future, not only the future, but also the past...\\"

Don't die without reading it!

25.02.205 rereading update.

I don't have anything to add to the feelings I had in the first reading. This time, I will write my quotes and put them in a box:

\\"To die is to lose oneself and join others. But he had saved himself and lost the others.\\"

\\"In some people, authority is within; some emperors really have new clothes.\\"

\\"The nature of thoughts is to be communicated: to be written, spoken, realized. Thought is like grass. It seeks the light, loves crowds, sacrifices itself to be fertilized, and grows better when stepped on.\\"

\\"To be whole is to be part; the true journey is a return.\\"

\\"Heaven is within those who make it heaven.\\"

\\"But just as the future inevitably turns into the past, the past also turns into the future. I cannot deny it!\\"

\\"Thoughts cannot be destroyed by being suppressed. They can only be destroyed by being ignored.\\"

\\"...Just being sure that you are right does not require being right.\\"

\\"The only thing we have is what we are and what we give.\\"

\\"You can't take what you don't give; you have to give yourself.\\"

\\"What keeps a person alive is not wandering from one place to another, but drawing time to oneself. Working with time, not against it.\\"

\\"If a person feels completely alone against all others, he can easily be afraid.\\"

\\"My desire is a ruin. A planet spoiled by the human race. We multiplied, clogged, and fought until there was nothing left, and then we died. We didn't control our greed or our violence; we didn't show harmony. We destroyed ourselves. But first, we destroyed the world. There are no forests left in my world. The air is gray, the sky is gray, and it's always hot....\\"

Especially in the last quote, I thought about our world... It's like a summary of what will happen if we don't protect it!

\\"You can't possess anything... Especially you can't possess this moment if you don't accept the future with it. Not only the future, but also the past! Because they are real: The only thing that makes this moment real is their reality...\\"

\\"If the enemy presses you to his chest with passion and your own countrymen reject you with pain, it is impossible not to wonder if you are really a traitor.\\"

\\"They say there is nothing new under any sun. But if every life is not new with every life, why are we born?\\"

\\"The lights of different suns are different, but there is only one darkness.\\"

«Vero viaggio è il ritorno…»

Two planets gaze at each other: Urras and Arras. The initial vowels distinguish two opposite societies. On one hand, Urras is the land of the most unrestrained capitalism. On the other hand, Arras is the longest-existing experience of an anarchic community. The two planets look at each other; one is the moon of the other.

Fifteen hundred years have passed since on Urras, after a vast anarchic uprising (triggered by Odo and his proselytes), an agreement was reached. Those who did not want to submit to the laws of the state would go to colonize Arras, a semi-desert planet. A voluntary exile in a hostile environment where only cooperation and solidarity are the only effective weapons for survival.

” Like every other wall, it was also ambiguous, two-faced. What was inside it and what was outside it depended on the side from which it was observed.”

It is a wall made simply of pebbles and mortar, the border that separates the world of Arras from the interstellar port where a few times a year landings of ships from Urras are permitted for some exchanges of goods.

A few years before the real journey to the moon, LeGuin writes this novel that reverses its terms. The story, in fact, takes shape with the arrival of Shivek, the protagonist, on Urras where he will be welcomed with mastodontic headlines in the newspapers that read: «THE FIRST MAN FROM THE MOON!»

Shivek is a physicist who has made important discoveries that could revolutionize the communication and transportation systems of the interplanetary universe.

”No matter how intelligent a man is, he cannot see the things he does not know how to look at. How can you understand your situation here, in a capitalist economy, in a plutocratic, oligarchic state? How can you recognize it, you who come from a small commune of starving idealists, up there in the sky?”

The novel proceeds by alternating chapters that tell the impact of two systems, two social organizations in comparison: “So where will the Truth be?” It is a novel that contains deep and important reflections. I liked it very much, indeed a great deal...

”My society is also an idea. I have been made by it. An idea of freedom, of change, of human solidarity, an important idea.”

I lack the brainpower at the moment. This is evident from the fact that I initially typed “brianpower.” I'm well short of that, too. Recently, I jettisoned one of my Brians in favor of a Jimbo. The jury's still out on whether that was a wise decision. The Jimbo was on the clearance rack, and so far, he doesn't seem to do much other than shrug and say “dunno” periodically, whether asked something or not. I also lack the intellectual acumen to provide a cogent analysis of a work as thoughtful as The Dispossessed (or anything else LeGuin ever wrote). However, I will say this: it has her characteristic stylistic grace and thematic timelessness.

As I've noted before, contrary to popular belief, I don't like my sci-fi like I like my men (which would be dense and hard). In fact, I rarely swim in the sci-fi end of the pool. I prefer to frolic in the fantasy waters instead. That said, this is the kind of sci-fi I like. It's a focused and pellucid exploration of very human issues, enabled by the judicious, but not overly complicated, use of futuristic technology.
Just as she probed the issue of gender and the limitations of language in The Left-Hand of Darkness (impossibly ahead of her time, as usual), here LeGuin, in another preternatural show of prescience, plays with the role of the individual in society, the tradeoffs we make for certain basic securities and conveniences, and the relative value of all those things along the spectrum from anarchy to capitalism. It's a discussion that feels especially apropos in the midst of the increasingly ferocious clash between globalism and nationalism.
It's not a perfect story. Shevek is in some ways too much a tabula rasa, and his shortcomings are largely glossed over (especially a cringe-worthy drunken assault on his hostess at a party). Also, the turn toward large-scale, violent events in the book's concluding chapters marks a jarring transition from its otherwise introspective and contemplative pace. Still, it's a worthwhile read even for those who struggle to tread water in the sci-fi pool. It will engage your brain and force you to wrestle with some pretty critical issues, but it'll also keep you entertained along the way. LeGuin was truly a treasure.

I'm both surprised that so many people hold this book in high esteem and embarrassed that I don't.

This novel reminds me of those semi-fictional parables/treatises philosophers used in the past to elucidate a theory. It's like Plato's Republic, or Leopardi's Operette Morali Essays and Dialogues, or Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland.

In other words, this seems didactic to me. It's weak in story-telling, drama, adventure, and all those elements that make a novel fun and novelistic rather than just the exposition of a thesis. The characters are flat, the situations are staged, the language, while sometimes beautiful, is also somewhat subservient to the main idea, and the dialogue is quite platonic.

But since I'm clearly in the minority, I won't harp on this. Instead, I'll address the flaws of the theory. UKLG seems to be arguing in favor of a socialist/anarchist utopian society based on the free sharing of resources without any outside compulsion. The only outside compulsion the anarresti society acknowledges and relies on to some extent is custom.

Such a society incurs two main problems, which are addressed in the book. One, coordinating structures will naturally devolve into power structures. Two, people internalize laws and obligations, so the gentle pressure of custom becomes the much less gentle pressure of internalized prohibitions, stifling the very resources the sharing of which society so profoundly relies on. These two problems are solved in the book by the fact that since the anarresti society is a revolutionary society, there will always need to be a revolution in place.

The heart and soul of the book is Shevek, a super smart physicist who has come up with a unifying theory of space and time that may revolutionize not only Anarres but all the inhabited planets in contact with one another. However, the story doesn't amount to much. Shevek shares his intellectual vision, and the novel ends.

There is something in this whole utopia that I find profoundly annoying. Shevek believes that if you live up to your potential, follow your innermost desires, and give yourself fully to your calling, you do the rest of us a ton of good. The "analogic" model for this is the cellular model. A healthy cell is a boon to all the other cells.

What I find annoying is something I suspect I would find annoying in all utopias that appeal to a harmoniously integrated conception of humankind without a designer. It's hard for me to comprehend that the working of one little part of a social body will magically benefit the whole without someone to orchestrate such a miraculous convergence. It sounds like wanting to do away with the deity while retaining all the advantages of a theological conception of the world. This annoys me because it smacks of childish optimism and a belief in the order of things that stems from some forcedly ideological cheerfulness that is doomed to turn into a nightmare. It reminds me of my high school days in the 70s when there were student occupations and demonstrations. We got what we wanted but then didn't know what to do with it. It all degenerated into festivities and lounging around. If you want an anarchic society to be purposeful and ruled by an inner sense of direction, you've got to put god in, or resign yourself to chaos and degeneration. Mindless optimism bugs me no end.

Beneath the outer layer of science fiction, we discover a very political novel. In it, we accompany our protagonist Shevek as he travels between two completely different worlds: Urras (capitalist) and Anarres (anarchist).

I have enjoyed the chapters set in Urras (in the present and with more action) more than those that take place in Anarres, which have a slower pace, but all of them have seemed interesting to me.

I gave it a go. Truly, I made a sincere effort. I managed to get past the 30% mark, but then I simply couldn't endure it any longer. Many have drawn a comparison between this and Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" - unfortunately, and I mean very unfortunately, they are correct. It might be presenting an opposing perspective to Rand, but the absence of a plot, the lack of anything even remotely resembling a three-dimensional character, and the overly elaborate philosophical diatribes are just as uninteresting and intolerable as Rand's work.

Take, for instance, the issue that arises when what ought to be an essay is transformed into a novel. This is a prime example of how such a conversion can lead to a host of problems. The narrative structure that is suitable for an essay fails to translate effectively into the format of a novel. As a result, the story feels disjointed, the characters remain one-dimensional, and the philosophical musings come across as forced and unengaging. It's a classic case of a concept that seemed good on paper but didn't quite work out in practice.

Updated review after a re-read in November 2019.

---

“Change is freedom, change is life.” This powerful statement sets the tone for what is to come in this remarkable novel. “It's always easier not to think for oneself. Find a nice safe hierarchy and settle in. Don't make changes, don't risk disapproval, don't upset your syndics. It's always easiest to let yourself be governed.” These words make us question the choices we make and the paths we follow. “There's a point, around age twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities.” This thought-provoking idea makes us realize the importance of being true to ourselves.

“Those who build walls are their own prisoners. I'm going to go fulfill my proper function in the social organism. I'm going to go unbuild walls.” This novel, “The Dispossessed”, will forever be one of my favorite books. When graceful, intelligent prose and brave, nuanced ideas collide into one great story that intertwines the personal and the political, you get a treasure like this. Shevek, born and raised on the anarchist colony of Anarres, discovers cracks in the utopic system as his work in physics progresses. A visit to the capitalist planet Urras reveals both differences and commonalities. He finds himself in a high-stakes political game, caught between two worlds.

LeGuin's careful construction of the story, with two narratives set on Urras and Anarres, feeding and colliding at the perfect moment, is brilliant. The narrative structure aside, the book is filled with beautiful and thought-provoking passages that I had to stop and re-read. It's not just a sci-fi book about communism; it's a nuanced, idealistic, heartbreaking, gentle, and extremely intelligent novel. The subtitle “Ambiguous Utopia” is perfect, challenging the reader without preaching. Shevek is a beautifully rendered character, flawed yet wise and brave, and his relationship with Takver is unexpectedly romantic. Le Guin's fearless exploration of human nature, regardless of the system, makes this a classic that transcends the science-fiction label. It's a great work of art that I recommend to everyone. “You cannot buy the Revolution. You cannot make the Revolution. You can only be the Revolution. It is in your spirit or it is nowhere.”

Reading SF is by nature a challenge. One must necessarily step out of the real world, out of one's comfort zone, in order to enter the fantastic world created by the author. In this case, the charismatic Ursula K. Le Guin, with her "The Dispossessed", this of two worlds, rightfully and proudly stands at the top of the genre because this entrance is made not only effortlessly but also with increasing pleasure.

Closing our eyes and speaking in terms of sensations, the experience of the book can be compared to the touch of a reflexologist: the author-craftsman gently touches us and passing through a painful point, the pain hits the corresponding vital organ of the body. Le Guin thus presses on the melanin, climbs every sharp edge, uncovering the wet - urine, blood, rose water, whatever - of this holy flock called capitalism of which we are also a part. Thus, we find ourselves crying out "Ouch! Oh yes! This is it! Truth! Damn it, yes..." every time a truth emerges behind the words, with every discovery of a distorted and false reality that causes pain and discomfort. In our case, it first wrinkles the face, then the conscience, the heart.

We are acrobats on the rope that separates two worlds, two worldviews. From one side, the freedom of the anarchist world of Anarres seems enchanting, at least at first. No rope seems strong enough to tie us so tightly to the shore as to resist the song of its sirens. Everything seems so natural, soft, closer to our instinct, this primitive material.

"If you want us to jump, why don't you ask me?"

Mutual aid is the cohesive essence of its society, the unspoken agreement that makes coexistence possible.

On the other side is Urras, congenitally associated with the idea of property, possession, greed, mutual struggle. There everything is in abundance, somewhat like our Earth. Our Urras is even richer: we don't have to shake our warm wallet to buy "...watches, lamps, little dolls, candles, tables, toothpicks, children's rattles made of platinum with crystal handles... cadenzas, ashtrays, brooches, bracelets, trinkets of no value... useless or simply decorative to such an extent that they hide their usefulness, a vast area filled with luxury items, filled with excesses..." The basket of buns is permanently placed outside our door, we have everything à volonté, the buffet is open all hours. And the headache, the illness, is born from the abundance of possibilities and not from their lack. Possessing and being possessed, modern free people under siege.

However, absolutes do not exist in politics. Politics is a complex matter, more complex than an SF plot. Every world, whether Urrasian or Anarresti, you can criticize for something. It is clear where Le Guin's ideological slant leans. Her proposals are well-polished arrows that are fired at the center of the capitalist model. However, despite this obvious predisposition, the reader's pulse will beat where he desires, in a silent inner agreement with himself. The ideological reactor will come into operation, lights will turn on, resistances will burn and perhaps a redefinition of the course will occur. Without the message of the literature being the work itself, let's admit that this is a strategic art: literary skill and message are in balance, in a good equilibrium.

In the seemingly cold narration of the facts - which perhaps is also a hidden dominant prejudice against the genre - there are moments when the icebergs melt, we enter warmer climates and the crack is created from where the emotions will burst out, which will leave the perhaps desired space for identification for the reader and which will lead even to excitement. If nothing else, the text is impregnated with a sensitivity above expectations.

If I were to put a musical background that would be heard in the invisible sound that accompanies their way of life, in Anarres it would be the music of Ry Cooder from Paris, Texas. Dust, endless expanses of fertile land, silence, monotonous balance and peaceful coexistence with the few available resources. An enchanting condition, non-confrontational and non-competitive terrain - in the first phase. In Urras, it would be an electronic tempo, so as to keep its inhabitants constantly on the alert of the unfulfilled, wired to the central electrical panel from where the greed, the evaluation, the exercise of power of the strong over the weak is fed.

"The Dispossessed" is clearly also a feminist text.

"Is it true, Dr. Shevek, that in your society you treat women exactly like men?"

"Without them, good work cannot be done," said Shevek, laughing.

Shevek, then, naturally, travels to Urras to find ground to develop his theory of Synchrony in collaboration with his colleagues. He has high ideals and desires to share his work with everyone without exception, not to become a product of "export". He thus opens the door to freedom, to free individual choice. This lofty step towards the other world validates the great risk for himself: to be oppressed among them, in the midst of the furious winds of their difference.

In the populous society of Urras, this artificial, artificial oasis, he loses his box. The one who had learned to make his own bed, like a true Anarresti, has lost his orientation in the place of a thousand possibilities, in the Eden of endless choices. Where everything crumbles and spills to create - unfortunately - cancers, the ethical downfall. The comment on our societies, the Western ones, that is, is heavy.

"In the human sacrifices to the gods, at least one could discern a beauty, terrible and incomprehensible - in the rituals of the stock exchanges where gluttony, temerity and envy drove human behavior, even the terrible became banal and commonplace. Shevek saw all this monstrous insignificance with contempt and indifference. But he did not admit, he could not admit, that it terrified him."

The encounter of the reader with Le Guin's text thus releases airs of deeper reflection that find their center in the conscience and bring to the fore those things that have been pushed back, sows the reader-receiver's mind with fertile seeds to grow something. This something is different for each one. Somewhere between these two worlds, each one finds himself, with one foot here and one foot there, with one hemisphere of his brain here and the other hemisphere there.

The reader will engage in an acrobatic act between two diametrically opposed things. The idea of freedom in Anarres is perhaps ultimately also an utopian illusion like the temporary happiness that a pure narcotic offers. Because where there is man, tragically incomplete, there is also waste; whether the part is called Anarres or Urras.

"The Dispossessed" is ultimately the outcast who has nowhere to go. The one who is everywhere in excess and everywhere withers. It could be any one of us, a lonely personality with his unique hat, who is not made for any cell, and who is looking for his place in the world.

With my imagination, I tried the excitement that results from the idea of a union, an acquaintance, a brotherhood of two different worlds, if that ever happened in reality. And this mental simulation was something unique and deeply moving. The success of this terrifying fantasy is due to Ursula K. Le Guin. The traveler without luggage, Shevek, with only his real luggage being his mind and the vision of his utopia, takes us as fellow travelers on his spaceship, which will take him from one world to the other. All we have to do is to attach ourselves and dare the step into the void, this magical journey. Without luggage.

I leave this excerpt as a conclusion, as a unifying material for the two worlds, for any worlds. Because love can be the same poetic everywhere, in every world. The absolute polemical and peaceful act together.

"They returned to House Eight, Room 3, where they could finally quench their thirst. They didn't even turn on the light - and both of them liked to make love in the dark. The first time, they reached orgasm immediately, as soon as Shevek entered her - the second time, they fought and screamed with joy, prolonging the pleasure, as if they were delaying the moment of death - the third time, they were both half asleep and were revolving around the center of an endless pleasure, each one around the being of his partner, like two planets that revolve blindly, quietly, in the light of the sun, around their common center of gravity, without beginning and without end."

Please provide the article that needs to be rewritten and expanded so that I can help you.

As I suspected, I still don't have a review for this, and that is likely because I am simply too stunned for words. If you were to ask me, this is absolutely the best of Le Guin.

How on earth do you describe with verbal eloquence the master of verbal eloquence?

This is a flawlessly executed masterpiece. It excels in themes, soul, heart, intellect, and character. It shines in thoughts, pathos, rhetoric, and perception. In terms of impact, it is a vastly enriching work on both individual and cultural levels.

It is an enduring paragon and an instant and lasting personal favorite.

Glimpses of my extended adoration have, in my most typical fashion, been poured into the reading updates below. And as noted there, "To box [this book] into the genre of science fiction seems an enormous disservice. This should be taught in schools, and not only for literature or linguistics, but for philosophy, psychology, economics, social studies, science principle...". This book truly transcends genres and has the power to touch and educate on so many different levels. It is a work that will be cherished and studied for years to come.